Meat, drinks, dessert – Meatmother

When Adrian (Food Rehab) first told me of the new restaurant ‘Meatmother’, I shook and thought I heard him wrong so I asked him again ‘What’s it called?’. He confirmed me that it was called ‘Meatmother’ hahaha now is it just me or is the name of this restaurant borderline rude? :P

Anyhow rude or not, Meatmother is the newest American BBQ joint in Richmond and they’re here to serve serious ‘dude food’ slabs of meat, beer and bourbon. We visited on a Friday night and joining us was Adrian and Christian ~ Like all other Melbourne new and trendy restaurants, Meatmother doesn’t take reservations. Thankfully Mr Bao and I arrived at quarter to 6 and there was already a few people waiting for them to open.

The restaurant it quite with a small bar area downstairs and a larger dining area upstairs, we chose to sit on the bar table ~ The boys particularly liked the display of the different bottles of bourbon. I’m not much of a drinker and could only recognise Jim Beam hehe we also wondered if the bartender would actually climb up to the top for the bottle or if he had another bottle underneath.

Bourbon display

Mr Bao didn’t feel like any bourbon but stuck with his new favourite drink and that’s cider, this was a Henney’s dry cider imported from England. It’s not as sweet as the average cider and tasted a bit like beer but without the bitterness. Now he’s always looking for dry cider when we go out hehe

Henney’s dry cider $11

The menu was a very simple one-pager, all meats were served on a tray with one side and Texas toast. There’s four types of meat on the menu, pulled pork, beef brisket, beef short ribs and spare ribs. We obviously ordered them all. Hahaha I haven’t seen so many trays of meat in front of me before :D

Let’s start with the pulled pork with mac and cheese. The pulled pork was very tender and not chewy at all which is definitely something I look for when having pulled pork. I do, however, think it could have had some more flavour maybe some sauce or seasoning would have made it even better. The mac and cheese and served in a little cast iron cocotte, super cute. It’s a rather light tasting mac and cheese and wasn’t too rich, Christian and Mr Bao really liked it, while Adrian and I prefer ours creamier ~ The toast was also amazing very crispy on the outside and super fluffy on the inside, the waiter tells us that it’s

Pulled pork with mac and cheese $19

This is the beef brisket and we decided to order another serve of mac and cheese. The meat itself was very well cooked, thinly sliced and quite soft. But once again we found it to be sightly bland and some sauce would have made it much better. I sprinkled some of their homemade vinegar and found that it really made a difference ~

Beef Brisket $19 with mac and cheese

The beef ribs was probably the best dish! It’s probably an over used phrase but it really was ‘fall of the bone’, we didn’t even really need to use our fork to separate it because it was so soft. Not only that it was full of flavour, the meat itself was smokey and then a generous amount of barbecue sauce spread over it. Delicious! The potato mash was nice but nothing out of the ordinary and could have been improved with a tastier gravy. The beef ribs were so good that we ordered another and paired it with BBQ Beans, didn’t think it was going to be as exciting but we were so wrong. The beans were stewed in a thick chipostle sauce and had minced meat through like a chilli corn carne amazing! Sorry forgot to take a photo of it! Next time I promise!

Beef short ribs $21 with potato mash and gravy

The last meat we tried was the pork spare ribs, and they didn’t disappoint, these ribs will make you use your hand and get your face dirty until you suck all the meat off the bones :P Hahaha the chipotle slaw was the only vegetable side, it was a classic slaw with cabbage and carrots, it instantly made me feel healthier eating some salad.

Spare ribs $21 with Chipotle slaw

We didn’t stop there with the food, we also tried the BBQ Chicken wings, they were hot and spicy and had a good barbeque flavour. I think Win Win would have loved to try these but she’ll need a huge pot of blue cheese to cut through some of the spiciness.

BBQ Wings $6

There wasn’t any dessert options on the menu, so didn’t expect any. But the friendly waitress offered as she was taking our plates, ‘Would you like to hear about our desserts?’ my face immediately lit up. They serve dessert YAY! Definitely got extra points from me hehe

Frozen Key lime pie $8

There were two desserts that night, this is the frozen key lime pie, it was quite sour and citrusy with a chocolate cookie base, I really liked Adrian’s description that it tasted more like a frozen lime drink. It was quite good but i found it a little too sour.

Sticky toffee pudding $8

The other dessert was the sticky toffee pudding which is like the sticky date pudding without the dates, and because of this it wasn’t as sweet, especially with the saltiness at the base. The pudding was also warmand moist topped served with vanilla ice-cream and a salty toffee syrup. Another highlight of the meal! Christian said he could ‘EAT IT ALL NIGHT and next time he will order one for himself” and I couldn’t agree more, I could probably eat two myself!

It was a wonderful catch up with Adrian and Christian, we thought portions are generous, environment is chilled and staff are friendly. I’m definitely going to come back for more meat, drinks and desserts!

Yes, that is an unusual name for a restaurant! I love the plates they serve the food on – such a blast from the past. And I’m sure I would have ordered the wings for an entree and the ribs for a main! xx

I love the trays too I couldn’t help but buy a similar tray on Kitchenware Direct today because they were on sale hehe have waited an enamel tray for yonks yay!!! I think you’ve made a great choice with the wings and ribs they were awesome!

Hmmmm you know what I think about not being able to book and my issues with queues! But this does sound interesting and that sticky date looks great. Maybe after my first successful visit to Chin Chin!!??

Haha, yeah I would ask twice or three times to make sure I won’t say the name wrong. I love ribs and wings… looks so good. I rarely makes ribs at home, so it’s always a nice treat finding a good ribs place!

I LOVE Meatmother! Yes, it has a WTF name and an equally WTF cocktail list (bacon cocktail, anyone?) but it’s worth the hype. I love the spare ribs and my friend enjoyed the pulled pork. I didn’t get a chance to try any of the sauces on the table though :(